Batman Still Kicking Butt

For its third week running The Dark Knight has come out on top in the US Box Office beating out the newly released The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor by a cool $1.4M USD to gross $43.8M. The new X-Files movie (The X-Files: I Want To Believe) comparatively bombed by making a measly $3.4M giving 20th Century Fox another financial failure in the wake of the terrible Meet Dave.

Anyone taking bets for TDK being the fourth film ever to reach the golden $1 billion USD mark worldwide? Currently Titanic is sitting pretty after grossing $1.84B USD worldwide back in 1997, Lord of the Rings: Return of the King is in second place with $1.13B USD and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest just scraped it in with $1.06B USD. Of course none of those figures have been adjusted for inflation... Google it if you really want to know.

The Dark Knight, Best Movie Ever?

We knew the latest Batman flick was going to be big but seriously, THIS BIG!? It broke all opening day/night/midnight/weekend records at the US box office and is sitting in the number 1 movie of all time spot on IMDb after over 100,000 votes.

With an opening weekend of $158.3M (kicking Spidey 3 into second place with its feeble $151.1M) The Dark Knight sure seems to be raking it in. I saw it at Gold Class on Sunday night (late session) and am frankly amazed people love it so much. Sure, it was good, but the best movie ever!? I didn't have the buzz upon exiting the theatre as I did after viewing Batman Begins... am I the odd one out here?

Another bizarre little note I'd like to make while on Batman is that the majority of the lead actors and of course the director are not US born. First up you have Christopher Nolan (director) who was born in London, UK then you have Christian Bale (Batman) who is Welsh. Of course we then have the late Heathcliff Ledger (The Joker) who is a Perthican (Australia), Michael Caine (Alfred) who doesn't even attempt to hide his Londoner accent and finally Gary Oldman (Gordon) another Londoner. Cillian Murphy (The Scarecrow) who is Irish got himself a little cameo role too.

Batman vs Megatron

Ever wondered what the current Batmobile (AKA The Tumbler) would look like if it was to join forces with Optimus Prime, become an Autobot and fight the evil decepticons? Personally I haven't but Jolin and JesterJJZ of Jester Pictures have not only wondered, they've Photoshopped together what it might look like.

Witness the artwork on the original site (hi res available) and thanks go to Autoblog for the heads up. I love the detail of the transformed Tumbler.

Two Face May Save The Day

I've mentioned previously how silly the whole Batpod motorbike thing is that Batman is supposed to ride in the new The Dark Knight film. How it's totally rediculous and would be almost impossible to ride in the real world (as opposed to the reel world).

Rest easy, these new pics of Harvey Dent (AKA Two Face) look like he might be just cool enough to balance out the crapness we know as the Crap-pod. Thanks Movieweb!

PS: Spoiler Alert!!! Oh, too late? You already saw the pics?... suffer in ya jocks!

Publicity Stunt: Batmobile vs F1 Car

So the British Grand Prix was on at the weekend, The Dark Knight will be out next week and both events feature over the top super cars... what to do, what to do. It seems some PR person or persons thought that having the Batmobile (AKA The Tumbler) drive around a race track with Toyota's F1 racing machine would do the trick and going by the number of cameras seen in the video it seems to be a success.

Unfortunately the Batpod was also there but luckily it's so hard to drive even a highly trained F1 race driver can't get the stupid thing to work.

The video over at Autoblog is pretty boring but the photos look pretty cool. BTW, they don't actually race because you wouldn't want to embarrass Batman as I'm sure the F1 would kick The Tumbler's ass.

Batman's Other Bike

Some people dig Batman's new Bat Pod "motorbike" but others (me included) think it's totally rediculous and cumbersome, even for Batman. Well, fortunately for us it appears, as with the Batmobile, that Bruce Wayne can't be seen riding around on a half-Hummer so he gets to hoon around on this wikkid looking MV Agusta F4 superbike. Thanks for the good news Autoblog.

ReelAnime 2008 presented by MadMan Cinema

It's been a while since I saw a (good) anime film at the cinema so I was stoked to see an email from MadMan Entertainment declaring that not one but FOUR anime films are to be shown during July across Australia.

The films on show between July 3 and July 16 are:

- APPLESEED EX MACHINA
- BATMAN: GOTHAM KNIGHT
- VEXILLE
- THE GIRL WHO LEAPT THROUGH TIME

More info: http://www.madman.com.au/reelanime/